 Welcome to channel 17's continuing coverage of general election 2018 election day is November 6th and we are getting ready here by bringing you 100 candidates and 31 forums in the month of October. So we're glad you can join us and today we are with two women who are representatives in Burlington's District 6-5 in Burlington South End. We have Joey Donovan and Mary Sullivan. Thank you both for joining us. Our pleasure. Thanks for having us. Thank you. So you're running as Joanna Joey Donovan. Johanna Letty Donovan. Oh Johanna Letty Donovan. It takes up a lot of space on the bell. That's right so there's no room for Joey. There's no quote Joey. There you go. Okay good. So thank you both for being with us. You are both incumbents. You are running unopposed for the two seats. And why don't we just start with reminding the voters why you're running and what qualifies you for the position and maybe Joey you can start. You know I when I ran for the first time in the year 2000 I thought I would probably serve a couple of terms. It has been really one of the most honorable things I've ever done in my life. I feel very very fortunate to be able to serve the city of Burlington in my pillier. I go back again and it will be for my tenth term because there are issues that I've dealt with over the years that still have not happened and I want to be able to pursue those. I was very disappointed with our governor last year when he vetoed the minimum wage bill and also the paid family leave bill. Paid family leave we've been trying to pass now for more than a few years. It is not a great expense to the taxpayers of Vermont but it makes sense. I know in my family I was very grateful that we had the federal paid leave when my husband had an illness that I had to leave work. It would have been a lot easier had it been paid but at least I knew I had a job to go back to and it gave me time to do the job that I needed to do with him. So I'm going back to finish some of those things that I'm interested in and I hope that the people of the south end and Hill section of Burlington will agree that I deserve to do that. Thank you very much. Mary Sullivan. Thanks and I really look forward to getting back into Montpelier and working on some of the issues that unfortunately the governor did veto some really, really good pieces of legislation the last time. It won't just be that that we'll be working on but those will be important and starting I think with paid family leave and minimum wage I think is crucial. When you talk about an affordability agenda these are two really crucial pieces to make affordability real in Vermont. You can't talk about that and then veto these bills it doesn't make any sense. I do serve as vice chair of House Natural Resources Committee and co-chair of the Legislative Climate Solutions Caucus. Those are issues that I'm very passionate about and I really want to see the state moving forward so that we start achieving our greenhouse gas emissions goals that everybody says that they're very much in favor. If you have goals without a plan to achieve the goals they are useless and that's what I see that is happening a lot. I think it's very important for people to know that this is not only an environmental it's also an economic development agenda that when you spend a dollar on fossil fuel in the state of Vermont 80 cents of that goes out of the state that is not strengthening our economy at all. So there'll be many issues that I'll be going back and hopefully working on and I really hope we can get some of these through this time around. Let me segue to the question about climate change that we had prepared and that question is are there opportunities in climate change for Vermont? Maybe you could... There are a huge number of opportunities and I think that's where you see the people who are visionary in their legislative approach that they see these opportunities they don't just want to do the same old same old because that's what we've been doing and to move toward renewable energy and better farming practices so that you're reabsorbing the carbon into the soils it's strengthening the soil it's really good for everybody. We know from the regional greenhouse gas initiative that we've been a part of for a while from a study that was done there that our air is cleaner that there's now quantifiable fewer avoidable deaths and lost work time and so there are a lot of health benefits for getting fossil fuel out of our air. And then what do you think the opportunities though are in climate change what do you see as the answer to that question? I see a lot you know we have the renewable energy business out there and that is the real growth industry we have a lot of young people working these jobs at high salaries, good pay, good benefits this is where we're going to be growing our economy down the road and I think it'll be really and there's a real advantage to kind of getting out there and doing it first and not always lagging behind I often say to people that we get up on the floor of the house and brag about how Vermont was the first to do this we were the first to do that and when it comes to current times it's like well let's not be too much in a rush let's not be the first we're proud of our forebears for doing that and I'd like to see a little bit more of that same attitude in the legislature these days I think recently as reason as last week I read or heard that top scientists say that we really only have about a 10 year window to really start to be serious about this and start to make the change and it is unbelievable as Mary says that we have a number of climate change deniers in the state house we certainly have the chief climate denier in Washington who is sending a message that it's not the crisis that it is I look to my grandchildren and think it is imperative that we address this and you know Mary serves on natural resources and she's my chief advisor on all issues that have to do with energy and these issues and I think her statements today were really powerful about why we have to do something remind us what committees you serve on I serve on ways and means and tell us let's talk a little bit about the budget then we've talked and maybe the bigger issue of the economy we don't do the budget we just find the revenues to support it exactly so let's talk about the bigger category of the economy and you know how would you characterize the health of Vermont's economy and what do you think needs to happen and what role would you play in creating a sustainable future I think we have such kind of doom sayers about the state of Vermont we are a small state we can't do everything but I'm so impressed with the commitments that we have taken on to make life a little bit better for others and to find a way to pay for it I think Vermont is in a pretty good shape I think the independent entrepreneurs that we have coming to this state are really really making a difference I think I'm not sure that we brag about our excellent public education system as much as we should I would love to see an outreach where we're talking to skiing families that drive up here from Boston or New York to say why don't you come here you won't have to pay private school anymore you can get a public school education you can live here you won't have to drive here every weekend really put that outreach out about how good the environment the life work genuinely good workers and great public education that we have that would be a way to also expand our businesses but I think overall I was reading my friend Paul Silo and Jack Hoffman from the Public Assets Institute I go to their website a lot and read a lot of their materials and I think they paint sort of a brighter picture of our economic future than sometimes those in my pillier do let me just ask you before we fall up on there go ahead no I was just going to point out that Joey makes an excellent point in the fact that we do have excellent schools here and we should be celebrating that and supporting it that's another point where the governor has really been just such a disappointment you know this for two years in a row he plops these big issues and the legislature very late in the session that was supposed to be working on everybody knows the only way you get good legislation is to get it into committee really vet it and get people in to testify but it seems to be that he really wants to suck so much money out of public education and we are going to be like other states if we do that and we brag about the fact that we have really good schools good public school teachers and we certainly want to make sure that that continues how do you know that we have good schools what makes you so sure about that the way we stack up on national surveys and Joey might be able to answer this I think we are usually in the top five of a school due to accreditation I think the number of successful students we have I think where we are failing is getting kids to actually follow through they may go to college for a year and then decide they're going to do something else that we need to do more on higher education to attract kids and to then retain those kids in those programs one of the saddest things I have seen is students that go to college for two years or so leave without a degree but leave with debt and then they're not able to really get the job that pays enough to be able to pay back that debt and already then they're behind the eight ball so I think we need to do better when we started to have pay for high school kids to take college classes I was on the education committee at the time and we really viewed that originally as aspirational for first generation kids for them to be able to be exposed to a rigorous class to be able to realize they could do it they could master that curriculum and that they had it in them to go to college and it now has become sort of a general expectation for many high school students to take those classes and it's one of the things that I was a part of in the legislature that I'm most proud of that I see kids now who are going to college and some of them have six, eight, even 12 credits and so it saves them money in college and it gives them a sense of accomplishment and a real good sense that they are good thinkers and are really going to be the next generation of leaders here in the state of Vermont Mary, do you want to just add about your view of the economic state of the economy in Vermont and do you have specific ideas about building a sustainable economy? Yeah, it's very closely linked to looking at climate change and seeing how we can really help our state by changing our economy and keeping up with this and if we do that we have all of these benefits better jobs, cleaner air, we're out in front by not importing fossil fuel so I think making sure that as we talk about growing jobs that it's not like attracting some big corporation from some far off place to come in and hire lots and lots of people in a certain area but instead really supporting the entrepreneurs that we have here and having the state open so that if other entrepreneurs and small business people see Vermont as friendly they may come here and growing jobs in that way that it's dispersed, it's Vermont friendly we're using the resources that we have here and the Vermont Council of Rural Development they do an excellent job of really trying to grow jobs in a very sustainable way by giving very small grants to a farm or restaurant owner that they might start expanding a little bit and go from two or three employees to five or six and that I think is the Vermont model that we want to really focus on and make sure that we really stay with So what kind of issues do you hear from your constituents in the south end? What do they care about? What are they talking to you about? I think a lot of people aren't talking about the crisis of opioids and the dangerous situation facing so many people and the power of addiction I think we need to commit to finding more treatment spaces and different ways of addressing that situation We had a young woman who's obituary now has gone worldwide I think Her family has been in Burlington for a long time and many of us are intimately friendly with them and I think how brave they were to share that personal sorrow and how open they were to talk about something that people have felt shame before and I think many of us come from families where there has been addiction there's been sort of a quiet desperation about it oftentimes and so I would really hope that health and welfare and different committees that have to do with health will really start to look at that and see what can we do Is there any impact that we can have on that issue? Do you think we're having an impact now? There's been a lot of resources and time and administrative design and public safety resources reallocate like we've been doing a lot and yet we still have a significant problem Is it going down in Vermont? I really don't know I haven't looked at that but I think we all need to look at and do the research that's necessary what does work I heard Gary DeCarolis on the radio this morning just talking about places like Turning Point where there's a safe place for people who have problems with drugs and substance because it's been my experience that those folks have to sort of change their lives they can't go back to be with the people that they've been with and that's asking a lot when you're recovering from cancer or some other disease you still can go back to your friends and the life that you knew but the power of that and the places like Turning Point to offer people the computers to help write a resume to just have friendship to be able to have a cup of coffee maybe those are the types of things we need to reach out and develop more of and we want to be able to start a conversation about that issue and this certainly has shown such a drastic failure of allowing the pharmaceuticals to get away with what they've gotten away with and how do we get them to actually be responsible for this crisis that they certainly helped create How did they help create it? By oxycontin you have really pushing these drugs and then giving out too many tablets so you send a high school kid home they take two for what they need and then there's 28 left over and they can sell them at the high school and for some kids and we've learned certainly from this obituary who probably have an addictive type of personality it doesn't take much to become an addict or become a person with addiction and it's you know we have let the pharmaceuticals get away with way too much What are you hearing from your constituents in the South End? Certainly along with the opioid crisis that certainly is a topic of conversation we have water quality issues and that's a big one we have that big beautiful lake that we have not been taking care of for a very long time and not to be totally critical of everything the governor does but it was not a fun session last time for sure working with him I don't think he talked about no new taxes, no new taxes that's all we heard no new fees, no new taxes rather than looking at is this an investment that's how we run our families our own personal lives our own finances will spend something to know and pay back in the future and there's nothing that will have better payback than starting to clean getting the funding source so that we really improve the water quality in that lake it's a gem I don't think anybody can imagine living in Burlington without Lake Champlain those beautiful sunsets that we watch over the lake swimming and boating it's part of our life here I echo Mary Julia Moore who's the secretary of the agency was in Ways and Means and we were talking about how to fund the cleanup of the lake and I have great admiration for her and for the work that she has done but she was placed in a position where she had to talk about reasons that they can't do it and I finally had to say to her it sounds to me is the reason that we can't do it is to remove the fact of a campaign slogan which Mary referred to no new taxes, no new fees and I think the governor painted himself into a box with that I'm hoping that perhaps I haven't heard him utter that this time around because there are real problems and we're not over there just to find out a new tax or whatever the lake is cleaning up Lake Champlain we have to be somehow invested and I want to also salute Beth Pierce who did a fabulous study on the cleanup of the lake and it's probably the best thing that we had to look forward to or to look at and to say kind of start to study some of her suggestions for funding we even went back I learned a new word as sheets which are bottle returns that don't get taken back so the state gets the money somehow so we thought oh we could use some of the sheets it's funny those issues that never go away when I served in the 90s we had hoped to get that through back then I go away for 14 years and I come back and it's like oh yes we never did that did we so what was it that Beth Pierce had suggested as a funding mechanism that was not adopted I think part of it was a parcel fee and I think we now have GPS mapping that can probably do that better I think we have mapping now that can show where there are non-pervious things and you know we have big parking lots sort of shopping centers and all sorts of places that we could say you know here is the map this is what and you should probably be somehow taxed on that and cutting off that runoff is so important we've got to we don't want to just be cleaning up we want to be cutting off the runoff from you know we didn't start the regulation of small farms which is crucial it should have happened before there's a lot of elements that go into making the lake dirty but you cannot be having this phosphorous just running off because you're a small farm and so that it's just like the farmers have come on board they have I think we had a discussion I think before you came back to the legislature on riparian buffers that farmers would have to put some sort of a buffer between that and any stream that went through the land and I can remember I thought it was a very simple debate and we were there four hours later and it became a private property discussion and the state had no right to impose that on anyone I don't think we have that same viewpoint today in the legislature and when you're polluting a public good like that that's what it's about it's not whether you have right to your own privacy and whatever if nothing you do impacts someone else or something else but that's a different debate when it certainly does I'm prompting this question because of the governor's debate last night I think it was Emily Payton recommended growing marijuana in those buffers as a way to absorb phosphorus so the question that comes to mind is what's your view on the legalization of marijuana that's taken place do you think the state should go further what's your view on this I was a supporter of legalization first of all I think any issues around drugs should become a mental a health issue and not something that we deal with in courts but aside from that it seemed like our medical marijuana list was growing and growing every year and I'd hear people talk about how they use it for this thing or they use it for that and I'm thinking well this is in place of prescription medication I think that's a good thing but I do think we also I would like to see us move to regulation and taxation of it as I believe Massachusetts and Quebec are in the process of doing I agree with Mary I'm a strong supporter of legalization of marijuana it does not make sense to me that we legalize alcohol and do not legalize marijuana I also have never heard of anyone smoking a joint and going home to beat their wife up it happens on a daily basis with alcohol I think the law that we passed I think is simplistic it's foolish I thought it was an extremely small step and I think and I'm hoping that with there'll be some leadership to expand it and that we now when we have Quebec which is in business and Massachusetts and Maine is certainly also going forward that we do start to sell it legally tax it legally and make some money off it you know when we first had that study a number of years ago I think the amount that we were going to be able to make if we legalized marijuana that next that next session was not in the realm of possibility it was $35 million I'm sure it would be less now but again and I'm sure much of it would be going to health and it would be going to education which are two wonderful places for it to go but I think the time has come I think marijuana was demonized many years ago in Washington and it needs to come out of the shadows now we need to recognize and as I was kind of doing my due diligence when I was I was definitely leaning in support of it but I was talking to a lot of people and talked to a lot of young people and asked okay you were in high school recently if you wanted a drug would you have known where to go even the kids who never ever used it said well yeah and I'd rather have a system where we're not exposing them to really people and bad things and dangerous things fentanyl and all that other stuff that they're putting and lacing that with are they lacing marijuana with fentanyl? I heard that there's a problem that you can have that issue and I guess for those people that I know that do use marijuana they have a relationship with their dealer and they know who they're yeah I mean I think who and by know how to get it so that's one of the questions I'm not sure you can lace fentanyl marijuana with fentanyl but I'll have to check on that I'll do some deeper research we have a couple more minutes left I imagine you're not fans of the federal government at this time or the people that are running it that might be more specific so what do you see as your role as a legislative leader in a state like Vermont in this time where you have you don't agree with a lot of the decisions that are coming out of DC what can you do and what can this do? You know it's interesting last year I introduced a resolution that would have changed the way the president just has the sole access to the nuclear codes that it would have to be more of you know a few people consulting and making a decision like that and people in the legislature there's always some who if it's an issue they don't want to push through so that's none of our business it's all our business every public policy issue that we have either at the state or the federal level and I hope that if this man in the White House you know I'm sure he will continue doing the things he's been doing that we continue to speak up I'm very proud of our congressional delegation I think all three of them are doing a fabulous job at really being leaders and being the moral leaders that we need that lack of morality at the federal level is appalling to me Joey? I think that what we can do here is work hard to maintain the civility the types of legislation that we've done for the time that I've been there which really impact for monitors in positive ways it is appalling the situation we have in Washington I'm hoping beyond hope that November 7th will bring a bright day that perhaps we have Democrats have taken over the House of Representatives so that there will be some sort of accountability I believe there can be a lot of questions that could be asked at that time from the president's taxes I think the most recent thing that's just so offensive is his lack of reaction to this horrible by every account murder of this Saudi Arabian reporter and again at a rally last night he applauded somebody who had physically assaulted a reporter he has such disregard for the press and for other people that are really functional in our democracy so I don't know what I'm going to do the 7th of November if we don't have that tied in that change I want to thank you both for joining us today I know we have Joey Donovan, Johanna Letty Donovan and Mary Sullivan who are both representatives of Burlington South End legislative representatives representatives in our House for District 6-5 thank you so much for joining us and please stay tuned here for Channel 17's continuing coverage of General Election 2018 and we'll see you November 6th for live town meeting general election results thanks